trans_9 | lose yourself | sensoriums

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lose yourself | sensoriums | [OPEN]

Tycho had gotten his memories restored. It had been every bit as bad as he'd feared it would be, but just because it was bad, didn't mean he could turn away. All those beings (so many beings) deserved to be remembered, deserved to have someone carry the weight of their deaths, to have someone fight for them. As well, there was also that the more information they had on the Ohm, the better. He'd also just watched the recordings of the information session Aang and Cargan had given, but nothing compared to actually witnessing it with his own eyes.

The force they were up against seemed impossible to beat.

But Tycho could not let it overwhelm him, would not. So here he was, sitting in the sensoriums, trying to find his center again, trying to find a place of peace and calm within him from which he could act with confidence. The sensoriums had flawlessly recreated the Alderaani peace gardens, from Aldera City, and now Tycho sat on a bench along one of their soothing paths, eyes shut as he just breathed in the air of his home. He breathed deeply and tried to center himself, tried to push all that fear and doubt and anger out of him.

He'd sent out a couple com messages to a few people on the ship letting them know where he was, and the sensorium door was unlocked, in case anyone needed to talk to him.

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Arha, not one to stay away, found her commanding officer (and the two trays she was carrying formed themselves in to this...hot chocolate...thing that Luke had introduced her to) and promptly sat herself down next to him before wordlessly placing the warm cup beside him. It was a heavy thing that had him sitting in this place, such she could feel from the doorway.

So she sat cross-legged next to him and was silent.

Someone sat quietly beside him, and after a moment, Tycho opened his eyes, turning to look. "Arha." His face broke into a gentle smile as he reached down, taking the cup. Bringing it up to his nose, he sniffed at it curiously. "Ah. Luke's hot chocolate, isn't it? Thank you."

He took a long slow sip as he stared out over the tranquil garden around them.

"You are welcome," Arha said. "The choc-o-late, it is a good thing." She tilted a glance at him, then took a careful sip of her drink. "There is no Spice in yours. I am afraid it is time for my dose. I do not think it tastes right with the Spice in it, but it shall do."

Arha smiled back.

"I had thought you might wish quiet company," there was a pause, "and this choc-o-late."

Tycho raised an eyebrow. "Taking care of your commander?" he teased.

"Did I not say I would do such a thing before?" Arha asked solemnly, her own eyebrow arching to match his. "Such is a thing I meant."

"Hm." Tycho raised an eyebrow at her as he watched her over the rim of his chocolate mug. "I never doubted it." There was a smile in his voice.

"Good," she said with a firm nod and a quirk of a smile. "One should never doubt their pilots."

"I would never doubt you," Tycho tells her with a quirk of his own lips. "You are a certainty, Arha Massri."

"I am pleased you think so," Arha said, flashing a bright grin before taking a sip of the chocolate. Tycho was her commander, she did not doubt him and would not. And she would to everything possible to support him. They were warriors and in a team, support was always crucial. If it was this choc-o-late, conversation, sitting, or teamwork in a fight--he would have her at her best.

Tycho's eyes slid shut as he smiled slightly. When he opened them again though, he looked pensive, and he remained quiet as he stared unseeingly at the flowers across from them, absently taking another sip of his hot chocolate.

Arha watched him for a moment and then leaned her cheek into his shoulder. It was a different sort of place, this. Fertile, green, and the flowers--the Ohm (and from the history she'd read, the Empire) had wiped it all clean. To return to this space was both a pleasure and a sorrow for her commanding officer, this was truth.

It was also a place Arha knew she would never have the chance to see in any other way.

The silence was not awkward, but reflective. Like the weight of her own universe being destroyed, this was a hard thing to bear, but even if he spoke not of it, Arha remained.

Winter had been to the sensoriums before, had seen its recreations of Alderaan before - in fact, she'd gently corrected Tycho about various subtle details he'd gotten wrong, little things that didn't really show up in holo and had obviously faded from his memory. But entering still made her falter. Going back to remember and relive the Gardens wasn't the same as seeing them again.

She saw him on a bench and came to him, her shoes clicking softly on the paving stones. Then she sat besides him, reaching for his hand. His pain was clear, threatening to make her recall all the other times she'd seen it. But she didn't.

Despite herself, she noticed that some things slightly off about this recreation of the Gardens. The sky wasn't quite the right color for the season suggested by the temperature and what was in bloom. Some of the plants weren't right in various ways. There was a great thranta in the distant sky, but it wasn't as blurred by atmosphere as something that large should be when seen from far enough away to make it that small. She wouldn't have mistaken it for any other world, but it was subtly, unmistakeably unlike what she remembered.

All in all, it seemed less like a memory of the gardens on a particular day, and more like a pastiche of those memories and of the holograms that survivors of Alderaan passed about. Was this how the other survivors remembered the world?

This wasn't about her, though. Winter reached with her other hand to stroke across her husband's forehead and cheek, not saying anything just now.

Tycho heard her coming, and so he did not startle when her hand slipped into his own. He gave Winter's hand a squeeze in greeting, keeping his eyes shut for the moment as he took comfort in her presence. When her other hand stroked across his face, he leaned into the touch, turning to press a kiss against her fingers.

"Hey," he breathed, finally opening his eyes to look over at her. Tycho flashed the tiniest bit of a smile, but his face quickly returned to somber as he looked down at their entwined hands. Gently, he stroked his thumb across the back of her hand.

He didn't say anything yet either. He wasn't sure what to say.

Arha's head settled against his shoulder, and Tycho's eyes slid shut again. The unspoken support was clear, but also the unspoken trust. He was her commanding officer, and Tycho knew Arha well enough to know that she trusted him implicitly. Her life would be in his hands at some point, inevitably.

Just as all his other pilot's lives had been in his hands. Pilots he had watched die, and there had been nothing he could do about it. It hadn't been his fault, but still he felt their deaths keenly, every single one. Tycho took a deep breath, and then another, trying to tamp down the wave of pain, of despair. Doubt was not what he needed right now; what he needed was certainty.

We will win because we have to win.

"Hey yourself, flyboy," Winter said quietly. She half stood up on the bench to resettle a little bit closer, not quite leaning on him.

She sat with him in silence for some time, carefully not indulging in the vague, nagging urge to correct the landscape. She thought of what he had been like when she'd seen him for the first time after Lusankya. This wasn't as bad - she didn't have that chilling sense that the man she loved had all but broken, and what was left had changed. But it was terrible.

"I'm here," she said at last. "If you want to talk about it, or anything else - or if you don't want to talk about anything, I'm here for you."

Arha wrapped her arms around Tycho and hugged him, surrounding him with all the comfort she could muster. This was not a time for being alone. There was grief and sorrow and she would not let him be along with such things. When she had felt in such a manner over the years, there had been no one but herself.

She did not say a word, but hugged him properly, and gave him silent permission to do what he needed to do, be it cry or rage. It was not a good thing to keep such things inside. Even Fremen let themselves loose once and awhile.

Tycho gave Winter's hand another squeeze in acknowledgment of her words, but then sat in silence for some time longer, trying to think of how to start, of how to give voice, a semblance of order to the myriad of thoughts and feelings swirling around his head.

What he finally decided to say was maybe not what Winter was expecting. "I never really talked to you about my time in Lusankya, did I," Tycho said as he stared down at their joined hands.

Tycho froze a moment in surprise; he wasn't used to being hugged by his pilots. Then, he reached up and gently patted Arha's back. After a moment, he pulled back so he could see her face.

"I'm okay, Arha," he said softly.

Of course, whether or not she would believe him was another issue entirely.

Winter blinked and gave it a bit of thought.

"Bits and pieces, over the years," she said. She didn't tell him that several of those pieces had come after Adumar. He knew she'd seen the transcripts and professional opinions recorded during those two months of debriefing in New Republic custody, but she knew that this wasn't about that. "I know you still dream about it."

"You are not," Arha said, fixing her blue-within-blue eyes on his face. "You speak to Bene Gesserit and Jed-Eye. In this moment, you are not 'okay', Tycho Celchu. You are distressed and you hold that within you." Her fingertips brushed his chin. "I see this, I feel it. There is nothing I can do, but this. I cannot take it from you."

Tycho nodded, grimacing slightly. He still had nightmares about it, she meant. How could he not? But this wasn't about that either.

"When I was being debriefed-" -when they were trying to prove I was a traitor- "the question they kept asking me over and over again was how had I done it? How had I managed to resist the most skilled brainwashing techniques Imperial Intelligence had to offer?" Tycho sighed. "I kept giving the same answers over and over, and they kept asking, because I don't think any answer would have satisfied them." He turned his face away from Winter now, staring off into the distance, but his tension was clear in his clenched jaw, in the line of the tendons in his neck. "Anyway--" Tycho sighed, bringing up a hand to rub at his face, "what I told them was the truth. I don't remember everything that happened, but I do remember them trying to force feelings of positive reinforcement to Imperial stimuli on me." He glanced at Winter. "You know that from reading the reports on my debriefings. They tried to make me feel good about the Empire, forced those good feelings on me with chemicals and Force knows what else. But I knew the Empire was wrong and I knew it shouldn't feel good and I just ..." he made a gesture with his free hand, "refused. I just refused. I clung to that certainty, that the Empire and everything they stood for was wrong, and that I was against them, because that was who I was." Tycho grimaced again. "And that was how I survived Isard." He shrugged slightly. "I suppose you could call it force of will, but I wouldn't, not really. Lusankya just stripped me back to the bare bones of myself, and all I had left was my certainty. It just turned out to be enough."

"But now ..." Tycho sighed again. "Now with the Ohm, I'm certain we will beat them, because we have to beat them. There just isn't another choice. Only ... I'm not sure that certainty is enough. The Ohm can't be beat by force of will alone. I can mentally reject them all I want, refuse to accept their victory, but ... that doesn't change the fact that we're out-numbered and out-gunned and ..." He looked in Winter's eyes, and it was clear he was being completely honest, telling her something he wouldn't tell anyone else. "... I'm not sure we can win. I'm certain we will win, I am, ... but at the same time, I'm not sure it's actually possible for us to win." He laughed a little at the apparent contradiction, but the sound was far from amused, and his face quickly grew serious again. "The Empire was human, they had human weaknesses. But the Ohm ..." Tycho was silent for a long moment, and then his mouth twisted. "I guess I should just stop thinking about it and stick to being certain we can beat them." Tycho smiled over at Winter, but the smile did not reach his eyes. His eyes were the eyes of a profoundly tired man, a man who had been fighting too much for too long, and who has now been asked to fight even more.

Tycho sighed at Arha fondly, but then his expression grew serious again, serious and sad. "I just watched my home destroyed, and my friends killed. It's natural I'm distressed, don't you think? But ... that doesn't mean I won't be okay."

"Such is true," Arha said. "I wish that I could do more to make it better now. I, too, have had my memories of that time given back to me. It is not an easy burden, but it will have to be bearable. I think it is a thing that needed to be restored, though the pain of it is great. I know you will be fine, but...that does not mean I do not wish to offer comfort. Is this not a thing to do?"

She tilted her head to peer up at him curiously.

Tycho nodded. "I too think it's necessary, though I could understand how others would disagree."

His eyes softened at her words. "It is a thing to do, yes," he agreed softly, "and thank you, Arha. I don't mean to seem unappreciative."

Winter listened.

She didn't say anything for a while, eventually letting her eyes drift from his.

"The Empire has never been our only enemy," she said at last, following a distant thranta with her eyes. "We've fought back the Ssi'ruuk Imperium, the Hiromi, the Tofs, the Yevetha... aliens all, and all peoples we had never heard of before." There had been others, true but those had been the big ones. The worrying ones. "Who don't think the way we do, or have our cultural blindspots. But we defeated them, all of them. Not without sacrifice, but it was done."

A little strength bled back into her voice, and she said, "It may be a hopeless cause. Maybe it is a hopeless cause. But we've supported those before." They just hadn't ever been hopelessly out-resourced and facing implacable aliens at the same time before.

"You're right of course." Winter, with her calm logic, always seemed to know what to say to fix his frame of mind. He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. "I'm just feeling a little ... I saw the Lusankya destroyed, crushed like it was nothing. Wedge, Wes, Hobbie and I weren't on board, but the rest of Rogue squadron was, and they were all killed without firing a single shot. It's possible Stacy rescued them at an earlier point in time, and they're down in the pods somewhere, but still ... I saw them die." Tycho was silent for a moment and then took a deep breath. "But you're right. We had no idea how we were going to defeat the Empire after Hoth, but we did. This time isn't any different."

Tycho let his eyes slide shut for several moments, and when he opened them again, they were clearer. He turned towards Winter, reaching out with his free hand to tilt his face towards his so he could kiss her quickly on the corner of the mouth. "I love you," he murmured, lips curving upwards in a lopsided smile. "Now, enough about me being maudlin. How have you been doing? I'm sorry I've been so busy with the squadron, but," his smile turned wry, "you know how it is. An XO's work is never done."

"There are some that think it wrong to know the end--some are unstable in many ways and unsuited for the memories. But others, like you and, too, me, we can handle it. We do so for the worlds we have lost, for those left behind, and for the tactical advantage that may be gleaned." Arha squeezed him gently.

"Customs between Universes, they are things that can be violated. Not all cultures approve of comfort in any terms. Some have conditions, places in which to grieve, others acknowledge through battle. I would have been remiss if I had stepped over such etiquette. I am pleased I did not." She smiled, then, her teeth barely flashing. "You are welcome, Tycho. I do not like to see those I consider family in distress, but such things will happen. I am pleased you will be, in time, fine."

Winter opened her mouth to say that the Lusankya and everyone on it had gone on with its duties. Wedge had sent a holocomm message to her from the command deck, beaming madly, to announce that he was getting married to Iella and would she please track down Mirax and Booster, and behind him Tycho had cast an amused, knowing look into the transmitter.

She closed it again. No, she didn't know how this worked, any of it, but she did know that what was true for her wasn't necessarily true for him.

"Luck, the Force, skill and training - we'll need all of it. And as many allies as we can make."

She tugged his face back over to kiss his brow, then his cheekbone, before she let go. "I'm fine." Over the years, she'd become very good at hiding how she felt. Even from him. And Tycho was troubled enough, even if his mood had lifted a little. "It's just all a bit much, you know. But I'm glad that you're here."

"You're right." Tycho smiled lopsidedly. "Good thing we have me and Wedge's freshly honed diplomacy skills then, hm?"

Tycho might know her better than she thought she did. The fact that she was actually admitting 'it's just all a little much' meant that it really was more than a little much. Still, Tycho kept his concern mostly off his face. Winter wasn't a person who would take smothering well, and her independence was one of the (many) things Tycho liked about her. Still, that didn't mean he didn't want to help, however he could. However she would let him. "I know what you mean," he said. "Having lots to do helps. When I first arrived I basically completely threw myself into helping Wedge with the squadron." Tycho paused to consider this, then conceded with a chuckle, "... I never really stopped. But building a squadron from scratch takes a lot of work. I know you're perfectly capable of finding something you want to do yourself, and I know military logistics aren't necessarily your thing, but Wedge and I would love to have your help. Of course there's plenty of other things as well ... I think there's going to be elections for a civilian government soon. Knowing this crew, that's going to take all kinds of work ..."

He's trying, while trying to appear like he's not trying. Winter can probably tell anyway though.

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lose yourself | sensoriums | [OPEN]

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